Unfinished Business
Lake Okoboji: Timeless . . . and Ever-Changing
I was an Iowa farm kid, and my family's livelihood was working the land. We left the farm only twice to vacation. But I grew up in northwest Iowa, and Lake Okoboji was a day trip away. It became our favorite family reunion destination. We four kids would scramble into the backseat of our 1956 two-tone green Biscayne Chevy, vying for window seats and elbow room. We had never seen so much water – even when our bottomland flooded in the spring.
We always visited the Abigail Gardner-Sharp Cabin and Museum before leaving for home. If we were lucky, Mom and Dad would stop at Arnold's Park Amusement Park, with its legendary wooden roller coaster, lakeside Ferris wheel, Nutty Bar Stand, and boardwalks. It was a magical place!
During junior high, I made more Okoboji memories at a week-long United Methodist Summer Youth Camp. We toasted marshmallows and sang around the campfire at night, shivered through lake shore sunrise services, tossed and turned from the excitement of sleeping in cabins far from home, and navigated the choppy waves of intense, new friendships. I still have this wooden lanyard autographed by my Green Briar cabin mates.
I saw Lake Okoboji through the eyes of a child, and truly it was a 15,000-acre playground. Although my husband and I later took our kids there, I still looked at it through their youthful eyes. When we bought four tickets to ride the Queen II, it was my first time, too.
Earlier this week, thanks to the Okoboji Writers' Retreat (OWR) at Iowa Lakeside Lab in Milford, my eyes were opened to both the timeless and the ever-changing nature of this iconic Iowa resource.
Enveloped in History
I learned the history of this 147-acre campus on West Okoboji overlooking the shoreline of Little Millers Bay from Mary Skopec, executive director of Iowa Lakeside Lab. "Professor Thomas McBride had a dream of providing students and scientists a place to study in nature," she told us.
Founded in 1909, it was maintained by the Lakeside Laboratory Association until 1936, when ownership was transferred to the state of Iowa. Along with other OWR participants, I wandered the worn, winding paths, crossing the swinging bridge over a ravine shaded by burr oaks, where we discovered charming classroom labs made from native stones. Someone remarked, "Great stones. Wonder where they came from?" The same glacier that formed these Great Lakes 150,000 years ago also deposited these awesome stones.
The Civilian Conservation Corps built these five stone laboratories in the mid-1930s, along with four student cabins, and a bathhouse; other buildings were added in the 1960s and 1970s. The five labs were named after Iowa scientists: McBride, Shimek, Pammel, Calvin, and Bodine. Eleven of Lakeside's 37 buildings are listed on the Register of Historic Places. (Main Cottage dates from the late 19th century, becoming part of Lakeside Lab when the first five acres were purchased.)
The Lakeside Lab features three diverse Iowa landscapes: The northwest portion is high ground that's being restored or reconstructed to native prairie and meadows; to the south, the woods and savanna snuggle close to the Lake; the Lab also is home to restored wetlands in this prairie pothole region.
In the early 1990s, state legislators almost closed the Lakeside Lab. Friends of the Lakeside Lab was incorporated in 1996 (friendsoflakesidelab.org). In 2006, the Lab was designated as a Regents Resource Center, and it's one of only two biological field stations in Iowa.
The Lakeside Lab also offers a playground. About 2,000 children attend summer camps there – think Frog Camp and Science & Superheroes! Many activities, including school field trips and spring/fall "No School" day camps, revolve around experiential learning. Kids study animal and bird behavior--minks, owls, eagles, hawks--and more. But there's also aquatic ecology, field archeology, ornithology, plant taxonomy and prairie ecology.
Laying Groundwork for Future
Today Iowa's Great Lakes face grown-up challenges. The Lakeside Lab's prime location places it in the catbird's seat for monitoring the impact of environmental issues and climate change. Water quality and fishery experts , along with college and graduate students, are invited to study here.
Climate change, with its intense rainfall and prolonged drought, can lead to increasingly harmful algae blooms. In 2003, the MacBride classroom was renovated for research into freshwater algae. The 1998 Waitt Water Quality Lab is a year-round teaching and research facility housing a dual State Hygienic Lab employee. Its diatoms course (microscopic single-celled organisms) is world-renown. Lakeside Lab also partners with Dickinson County Clean Water Alliance, a group of more than 60 organizations.
Cyano bacteria (also called blue-green algae) give off toxins harmful to people and animals. Excess nutrients from sewage, animal manure, and fertilizers from urban and rural use, as well as sediments carried by the wind contribute to algae blooms. CLAMP, the Cooperative Lakes Area Monitoring Program, has been sampling waters for algae since it was launched by Lakeside Lab in 1999. In the summer of 2022, professors and graduate students gathered at Lakeside to produce "Let's Talk about Algae, Blooms, and Harmful Algae Blooms,” www.iowalakesidelab.org. Cyano bacteria was spotted in Big Spirit Lake, East Lake Okoboji and West Okoboji in 2023. Blooms also provide a source of food for E-coli, found at Emerson Bay Beach on West Okoboji this summer.
The good news is that wetlands filter rainwater runoff containing nitrogen and phosphorus. Ducks Unlimited has worked with the Iowa Dept. of Agriculture and Land Stewardship to restore 10 wetlands here since 2020. This $7.1 million five-year commitment has a goal of creating 60 wetlands in this Prairie Pothole region. Two wetlands filter runoff from 8,233 surrounding acres and prevent 427 pounds of phosphorous from getting into the Lower Gar annually. Wetlands also enhance wildlife habitat.
More than 47 species of fish are found in West Lake, with 11 species of popular sport fish. A $627,000+ electric fish barrier was installed at Lower Gar Outlet to discourage further entry of invasive Asian carp (bighead and silver carp). Research conducted by an Iowa State University Ph.D. candidate at Lakeside also evaluated removal of two other nuisance fish species, Common Carp and Bigmouth Buffalo.
Invasive species include vegetation, such as Eurasian watermilfoil which entangles boat props and creates poor fish spawning conditions. Sonar A.S., an aquatic herbicide approved for use on lakes and drinking water sources, has been applied to four of Iowa's six Great Lakes. Curly-leaf pondweed also is an issue. Boaters and anglers also can prevent its spread by cleaning, draining and drying after each time on the water.
Lakeside Lab faculty also is focusing on a fungus causing bur oak blight, and shares its findings at public meetings.
Wind farms are stirring new controversy in the Okoboji area. Turbine producer Invenergy has applied to build up to 101 turbines, and a Dickinson County Board of Adjustment hearing with a possible vote is set for October 23. Opponents are seeking increased distance setbacks.
The $2 million homes being built here today are a far cry from the Lake Okoboji of my childhood. But there's no denying that the Lakes are economic drivers, attracting more than one million vacationers annually to enjoy added amenities like the Pearson Lakes Art Center, the Okoboji Summer Theatre Company, Okoboji Classic Cars, LLC, and the Live at the Lake Concert Series, followed by fireworks over the Lake. Lake Okoboji remains a giant playground. But it is so much more!
Paying It Forward
We Iowans take for granted that the Okoboji we've known and loved since childhood always will be there when we return.
If you listen closely on a calm, cloudless summer night at the Lakes, you still might hear the faint refrain of children singing, “Kum Ba Yah, My Lord, Kum Ba Yah.” However, many of Lake Okoboji's grown-up challenges will require more than a Kum Ba Yah moment from us.
Thankfully, the Iowa Lakeside Lab is a boots-on-the-ground resource. "I see the Labs as being a cross between an education facility, a state park, and museum," Skopec said.
Although we honor and cherish our past connections to Lake Okoboji, and other Iowa lakes and streams, do we share the same reverence for creating more sustainable connections to their future, and to the generations to come? Is it time to pay it forward?
For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue.
William Wordsworth
Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey
The "childhood eyes" lens works for many adults. The preservation of Lakeside Labs as well as the shorelines of the Iowa Great Lakes is key to keeping this part of Iowa a place for all seasons. Enjoyed your writing.
Great tribute to Lakeside and the Lakes area.